Spreading the Good News: Social Media for Schools

Presented by Heather Hurley, Assistant Principal, Arlington Public Schools (Disclaimer: I am quite fond of Heather!)http://www.learning2leading.com/2015/06/spreading-good-news-using-social-media.html
Spreading the Good News: Using Social Media for School Communication from Heather Hurley
Recommended  Reading:The Power of BrandingShow Your Work
Important points to remember:

·      Start SLOWLY! ·      Tell good stories·      Share something small every day·      Get out in the school and see what’s happening·      Don’t be human spam and over-share·      Give a voice to all stakeholders·      Make sure you do not re-tweet the same users over and over·      Use multiple platforms (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook)·      Stick around: commit to the plan and don’t stop all of a sudden or discontinue
Jamestown Elementary’s Plan:

Based on a district committee where one representative per school is given a stipend to be social media directorMonthly meetings and trainings for committee membersDistrict Social Media planOriginally used Facebook, Twitter, Remind, Pinterest:

• Twitter proved to be most useful and successful
• Pinterest ended up being adopted by the librarian for sharing books each month that were new to the collection
• Remind was useful to parents and managed by individual teachers
• Facebook is launching ion the future

Add-Ons to improve the plan:

·      Nurph- a Twitter clean chat platform for teachers and administrators to facilitate chats in the evenings – a question is posted and a unique hashtag

·      Periscope: Live feed videotaping allowing a post to Twitter. Viewers can comment and also save the feed to their device
·      Flipagram: Several photos can be added and posted online with music, titles, etc.
·     Storify: Makes a story from a Twitter feed based on a particular hashtag
·      Tweetdeck: multiple Twitter accounts can be viewed in one window—Tweets can be scheduled, also great for managing Twitter chats

Sandi H. Dennis- Media and Instructional Technology Specialist